


After the Fog

by hufflepirate



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 3.5k horror lonely-scape 10k cuddles-that-come-after but also Jon!angst bc he can't help it, Caretaking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Healing, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Self-Doubt, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles, Touch-Starved, air mattresses, very vague Basira/Daisy, very vague Jon/Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: Martin has been trapped in the Lonely for he doesn't know how long. Being rescued is frightening, but so is everything that comes after. Except for the cuddles. Those are a nice surprise.Jon has rescued Martin from a place that isn't a place, but that doesn't mean he's not still a monster. Does it?Daisy knows how it is getting out of the place where an entity lives, and she knows she's trying to be different, but she never thought learning to be different would turn out like THIS.There are two large air mattresses linked together on the floor of the tunnels under the Institute, and nobody's quite sure why they sleep there now.





	After the Fog

Martin closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. For now, that was better. For now, it made him feel like he was real.

It had been a long time since the Eye was on him, probably. Time was... less real than he was. He supposed he could count the spaces between his breaths, between his heartbeats, but what was the point, really, when there was nothing else and no one else around him?

When he opened his eyes again, it was only going to be fog. It was only going to be fog, and he was suspended in it, because there was still nothing under him, but he wasn't, because there was still nothing holding him up, and there was space all around him, big and open, but there wasn't, because the fog pressed up against him on all sides too close, _too close_ , and all of a sudden, the darkness behind his eyes was _too dark too dark_ , and for a moment he feared he would open his eyes to nothing and he had damned himself.

He hadn't. He opened his eyes to the same faintly lit billowing white fog, and his breathing kept going, but he thought probably it wasn't moving through time the same as it had before.

It was hard to know.

It was hard to know how long he'd been here.

It was hard to know how long he'd shouted, hoping for someone, anyone to come help him.

It was hard to know how long it had been since he'd stopped shouting, focusing on his breath and his heartbeat and the empty, empty ringing in his ears.

It was hard to know how long he'd been alone, alone, alone, broken up only by the searing, burning pain of the Eye raking over him at will, and by the sudden, sharp hallucinations of everything else that shook him up again any time he began to adjust himself to the alone, alone, alone that he was.

Being alone was a relief. He tried to tell himself it was a relief every time the loneliness began to get the better of him.

Certainly, it was better than the Eye, burning into his flesh, peeling him apart from the outside in.

It was better than the sudden clearing of fog when he was nowhere, nowhere, nowhere and something was in the void with him.

It was better than the sudden press of fog around him, alive and suffocating and trying to drive itself into his throat to drown him. To suffocate him? Driving itself into his throat to bury him in itself, tasting dusty in his mouth all of a sudden even as it stayed only ever fog.

It was better than the sudden nightmare of being surrounded on all sides by heaving, breathing, formless flesh, a cage of living meat.

It was better than the sudden dance of patterns swirling in the mist that he couldn't make out but that drew him in toward them until his head began to swirl twice as hard and it was harder to know he was _real_.

It was hard to believe it was a relief. It was hard to believe it was better. But it was. It _had_ to be. Because it was where he was, and anything else was unbearable.

He wanted to call out again, to cry out for whoever had shoved him here to release him, to scream for rescue, or at least for company, to demand something, _anything_ to break up the nothing-and-no-one, but he knew better, now.

Every time he tried to move through the fog, tried to look for something, for someone, for anything that wasn't himself, he found a new horror, a something worse, a punishment from the thing that kept him here, trying to draw him closer to itself.

Being alone wasn't a relief. It ached in his chest, and he reached his hand slowly to his own neck to feel for his pulse. His chest ached, ached, ached, but his heart was beating in it, and he was real and he was alive, and he was still in the world. The world wasn't empty. He was in it. The only one who wasn't no one. Who wasn't gone.

He kept his mouth shut and he did not cry out for anyone, and there was no one to hear, and he was real, and he was _real_ , and he listened to his own breaths that still were not words, because he knew better, now.

If he kept quiet, if he kept breathing, if he kept _feeling_ to its fullest the loneliness that poured through him, the horrors would stay away, except for the Eye, which seemed to come when it wished, regardless of him, and it was not a relief that it was the only thing that might come, and he realized his eyes had teared up again.

He let them. There was nothing to see. There was fog. There was himself. He knew what he looked like. What he used to look like. What he _should_ look like.

His eyes welled up with tears, and he let them, and when they were almost overflowing, he decided it was too bright here, and he squeezed his eyes shut to be alone in the dark for a while instead, and the tears ran warm and wet down his cheeks, and the darkness might have been a mistake, but his heart was beating, beating, and he could keep going. Had to keep going. Didn't remember why he had to keep going.

The longer his eyes were closed, the more he began to expect something to happen. Something to unsteady him, to keep him on the razor's edge of whatever this was.

It had been a while since he felt dirt or blood or spiderwebs on the skin that was him-and-not-him-and-the-edge-of-him, and maybe that would be it. Maybe that would be the something that was no one and hated him, the thing to make the loneliness easier for a moment so that it could build up again twice as strong the next time, until his heart gave out inside him.

Instead, as he breathed with his eyes closed, he sensed the burning presence of the Eye approaching again, and he realized he'd cursed himself, wishing for anything less terrible.

He tried to turn away from it, but it was not real and therefore it was everywhere, and he was just lucky he hadn't triggered anything else by trying to move on his own.

The Eye burned into him, even when he didn't open his eyes to look at it. Its gaze rested against his skin, astoundingly painful, and he wanted to howl and scream and sob as he had the first several times, but he did not, because he did not want to tempt the loneliness. There was no one to hear. The Eye wasn't real. He was alone. Alone. Burning.

The feeling of being watched vanished, and he instinctively opened his eyes to make sure it was really gone.

He was still in the fog.

His chest eased just a little bit.

He tried to turn to check behind him and make _extra_ sure, and the loneliness punished him with more hallucinations.

A hand reached for him, solid and fleshy and spotted with familiar-looking round scars he couldn't place.

He backed away from it.

It groped toward him, the arm attached to it growing longer and longer, extending from nowhere, out of the fog. Its fingers scrabbled toward him, sending little eddies of mist swirling around it that he dared not look too closely into.

He supposed this wasn't as bad as the meat cage. He still knew better than to reach back for it or to let it touch him.

A second hand joined it, the same size and shape and color, not far away from the first.

That was also odd. Most of his fleshy hallucinations were more varied. And more extensive. He pressed backward into the fog, hoping he wasn't about to hit more hands behind him. That _would_ be how it worked out, given his luck.

The hands reached for him, and he stayed out of their way, and for a moment, _just_ a moment, he was relieved that it wasn't worse, and he knew even as he shoved the thought away that he shouldn't have thought it.

The Eye opened up again, huge and bright and glowing, hovering a few feet above the hands, and he couldn't stop himself from crying out in pain.

His heart beat. It beat again. The Eye closed.

In the space between those heartbeats, everything shifted. The burning switched to a wrenching, twisting, tearing pain, like the outside layers of himself were being ripped off at an angle.

His ears stung, and the empty howl in them quieted, and for a moment, he heard his name in a voice he almost recognized.

"Martin!"

No. Martin was him, and he was Martin, or so he'd reminded himself whenever he could think of it, but no one talked to Martin or liked Martin or wanted Martin or was coming to save Martin, which meant it was a hallucination.

The hands scrabbled more efficiently in his direction, but he evaded them.

"Martin!"

Another voice joined the first, fainter and equally familiar, and that wasn't right. There weren't other people, to be familiar. It wasn't right.

"Can't you look for him again? You're just grabbing blindly!"

"It hurts him, Melanie, I told you that - Martin!"

Those were names, and Martin was _his_ name, and this had to be a trick.

The Melanie voice was speaking again. "Can any of the rest of us go? How does this door work? Could you put your head in and look the old-fashioned way? Could the rest of us?"

"You're not anchored," a third voice said, and Martin hadn't even begun to work out what to do with a third voice when a fourth added, "I suppose so," and then it was easier to know what to do because that fourth voice was _not right_ , and he did _not know it_ and it was _certainly_ a hallucination.

The arms swiped toward him again, and he kept still. Maybe if he kept still, they would leave, and the Eye wouldn't open again, and he'd be alone. _Oh god, he'd be alone._

His breath began to come faster. His heartbeat hadn't sped up yet, but he knew it would follow.

The Eye opened and closed again, faster this time, so fast he almost didn't feel the pain.

But then it did it again, and again, and it was too frightening for him to care that the pain was less that way. He shoved backward.

"Martin! No! Come toward me!" The arms waved and he kept shoving away from them as best he could.

"Is he _running_?" The Melanie-voice sounded incredulous.

"He can't run, but he's trying."

"Oh, fuck it, I'm gonna try to go in."

Martin's heart skipped erratically, to match his breathing. The Melanie-voice was coming _here_?

"Wait, you need an anchor!" The third voice again.

"We can anchor her. Or we can try. It's - anything that's familiar helps." A new voice. A fifth voice. Five voices. They couldn't be real. They _had_ to be real. It was too many to be real and too many not to be real.

"Are you sure, Daisy?" The third voice again. The third voice wasn't Daisy, and was familiar, and he knew better than to try to work out who it was, shoving back against the thought.

"No, but it's the only thing I can think of that we can transfer from when it was me."

"Do you think it's like that for him?" The third voice didn't remind him of any of the frightening things he'd hallucinated before, and that made it dangerous. He tried not to listen.

"Can't be that different, can it?" the Daisy-voice said.

"So are you going to anchor me or not?" the Melanie-voice demanded. His heart skipped a beat.

The eye flashed again. Again. The hands adjusted, straining farther, but not quite able to reach him.

"If he'd just cooperate, I-"

"Jon, just let me do this. They've both got my shoulders. What could go wrong?"

"Everything!"

"Then you'll just have to pull me out, too, won't you? Maybe if he sees me going with you he'll know it's alright."

"It won't be alright!" Jon-voice and Melanie-voice were arguing, and he _could not think_ about why it was familiar, because it was _only going to hurt_ when the hallucinations left him again.

The Melanie-voice didn't answer the Jon-voice. Instead, a second pair of arms reached out, beside the first.

"You can't even see anything!"

"That's because I haven't gotten _in_ there yet! I'm easing in."

"Be careful." The voice that was _wrong_ giggled. "I'm not sure how long I can keep the door open." He startled away from the voice and the arms just as the Eye flashed open and shut again.

"For God's sake, Helen, you're scaring him!"

" _I'm_ scaring him? Didn't you say it hurts him when you look at him?"

"That's different!"

"Jon, we've got to go together. Come on. Even if your real eyes hurt him, it's better than scraping at nothing. Grab my hand."

"Don't let Melanie go too far." The voice was stern, but one of the hands in the mist reached out to hold one of the other hands, and it was suddenly obvious to him that the Jon-voice and the Melanie-voice went with the hands and they were, in fact, Jon-hands and Melanie-hands, and something about that was familiar too, and he _couldn't think about that couldn't remember, couldn't, couldn't, couldn't afford to._

"We're not _idiots_ ," the third voice answered.

"Don't worry, we won't," said the Daisy-voice, "We'll pull you all back, if we have to. We've got your rib and the back of her shirt, and if we have to, I'll hold onto Melanie while Basira goes to get more tape recorders. It won't help Martin, but it'll double anchor you."

"Could you hear those when you were down there?" the third voice asked.

"It'll double anchor Jon." The Daisy-voice was stiff. Upset. He wanted to fix it, but that was silly, because - because - he shook his head. The voices couldn't be real. You couldn't fix people who weren't there.

The arms pressed forward, even farther, two linked and two free and reaching for him.

He wanted to push away again, backward through the fog, but he felt like he was frozen, too much going on in his head at once.

The Eye blazed forth, and the hands drew closer, precise in their angle as the Eye pinned him down and the hands approached, and he cried out in pain again.

"Oh fuck, you were right," Melanie said.

"I _told_ you that!" Jon answered.

The hands were attached to shoulders. The shoulders were attached to torsos. He looked down, away from the eye, keeping the hands just in view through his eyelashes, and saw feet step through, two of them, at different heights, and wearing different shoes.

"Are you sure you can stand in that?" the third voice asked.

"We're going to have to." Melanie's voice was closer now, _too_ close, and he squeezed his eyes shut, because it _couldn't be real_ but everything in him told him it had to be coming from outside of himself, through his actual, human ears, and that it had to be coming from something real.

"In for a penny-" Jon said, sounding tired.

The feet settled into the mist, stable against the nothing, and Martin felt everything swirl again.

He'd known it. He'd known better than to hope. He'd known better than to think they could be real.

Two more feet stepped in to join them, feet that matched the ones that had come before, and that were attached to legs and thighs and hips and stomachs, and he let himself look up, in spite of the Eye, and there were two whole people there, standing in the mist at about the same level where he was suspended-not-suspended and standing-not-standing against the nothing around him.

The Eye was gone, replaced by two smaller eyes, both glowing so brightly he couldn't see the face of the creature wearing them.

"Come on, Martin." The Melanie-voice was gentler than it had been before. It was coming out of a familiar Melanie-body with familiar, safe, non-burning eyes, and he squeezed his own eyes shut again to resist the temptation of hope. "It's time to come home."

"I'm going to take another step." The Jon-voice. But the Jon-Thing had the wrong sort of eyes. "Keep holding on. And don't go where the girls can't reach."

"I'm going to tell them you called them that."

"You know what I meant."

Martin wasn't sure if he heard the motion or felt it. He wasn't sure if he felt or heard or smelled the hand coming toward him, in spite of his tightly-clenched eyes. He jerked backward, knowing that walking didn't work here, except for when it did.

The fingers barely scraped against the very edge of his jumper.

He pressed backward again, farther away

"It's alright, Martin. It's me. I'm sorry it took so long. Figuring out where Peter hid you wasn't so bad, but figuring out how to get here was-"

The Melanie-voice interrupted. "I can't go much further, so you'd better grab him now. Or switch places so you can pull me back. If you're strong enough."

 _Strong enough_. A shiver ran through Martin.

"Don't hurt me," he said quietly, " _Please_ don't hurt me."

It was strange, talking. The air moved through his lungs like he'd always known to talk, and it didn't try to suffocate him even with the mist in it, and the sounds came out, but it struck him that he couldn't remember when he'd spoken before. He couldn't be sure how long it had been since he'd tried it.

There was a pause. A silence. No motion. No breath.

Between his heartbeats, Martin was relieved. Between his heartbeats, Martin was slammed heavily with the same fear and disappointment he'd known was coming, the same ones he'd felt before. He was alone. This was a punishment for speaking.

But then there was another breath, again, and it wasn't his.

"Oh. Oh, Martin. I'm sorry. I didn't - I'll close my eyes."

Martin's own eyes snapped open, shocked that the whatever-this-was was still here, and not gone, now that he'd fallen back into the depths of the lonely, lonely, loneliness.

The figure in front of him was very nearly a man. Its eyes were closed, and he could see its face, now, lit softly by a faint glow from behind its closed eyelids. Its eyelashes glimmered, just a little bit, but the rest of the face - the rest of the face was -

"Jon?" he whispered.

"Martin!" He looked up at Melanie, who was _Melanie_ , and oh God, what had he- "Grab onto Jon and let's go!" she half-shouted. She was both very close and very far away, and her eyes were very wide and scared, and he didn't look too closely at the outstretched arms that linked her hand to John's, because he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to make sense of the length of them.

It was instinct that brought his hand up toward Jon, even before he could make a decision.

It was a miracle that brought Jon's hand up in just the same place, even though his eyes were shut.

The hand in Martin's was real, and he waited for it to swell or rot or grow cold, and it didn't. It held him back, and stayed the same, the same, the same, and the pull on it didn't come from the body in front of him, it came from Melanie behind, tugging on them both, but she was strong, and Jon staggered back, and Martin couldn't bear to get any farther from him than he already was, so he staggered forward to match.

Melanie's hand was real, too. It wrapped solidly against his upper arm on the side away from Jon, and it did not swell, or shift, or burn, and she started stepping backward, drawing him and Jon with her.

Jon pulled their linked hands closer, closer, until Martin's hand was trapped between Jon's hand and shoulder, up above the linked hands keeping Melanie and Jon together and that were attached to their shoulders with normal, everyday human arms.

Martin stared.

Jon backed slowly toward the force that stretched Melanie's tshirt behind her, his eyes still closed.

Melanie pulled both of them, her eyes locked onto Martin's face. "Come on. We're gonna get you out of here."

Martin went.

Everything stayed fuzzy, and confusing, and impossible, and Martin went anyway.

  

******

 

Stumbling out the door and into Helen's nightmare corridor shouldn't have been a relief, but at least it was really, _properly_ solid, and at least it meant Jon could let go of Martin and Melanie.

He opened his eyes, stepping quickly away from both of his - colleagues. He had almost thought of them as friends, but friends didn't do what he'd done to Melanie, and friends didn't look down at friends' suffering even though they knew it made it worse, and these were only colleagues.

He didn't know what he'd expected Martin to do when they got back, but standing in the middle of the hallway, sinking down weirdly into his knees like a half-squat as he gazed around, bemused, wasn't it.

Helen's face had a touch more of the Spiral in it than usual, and Jon felt a sudden, driving need to get out of her corridors before she got any ideas. They might have been working together for a while, but that didn't mean he trusted her.

Melanie was breathing heavily, but had made it back ok, just like he had.

Basira and Daisy were letting go of Melanie's shirt and staring at the three of them.

Martin blinked and blinked and blinked, and it was a relief when Basira stepped forward to hug him and blocked Jon's view of his face.

It was a relief until Martin flinched violently in her grip and she leapt back away.

"Oh, Martin, I'm sorry, I-"

"No," Jon interrupted, his voice coming out wrong, his-and-not-his as he spouted something he Knew instead of knowing. "It helps. He's just not been touched in a while."

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut off the Eye inside him. Every time he'd looked in on Martin in that place, he'd hurt him. Every time, he'd watched Martin writhe beneath his gaze, and almost every time, he'd heard him scream. Martin had been lonely, _so_ lonely, but Jon had hurt him, trying to break through it, and he couldn't have that. He couldn't _be_ that.

"We have to go," he said, charging off down the hall before anyone else could say anything to him, "We've infringed on Helen's hospitality long enough."

Helen's laugh wasn't right and had never been right, and it hit his ear like a rebuke, because the voice he'd used to say what he'd said wasn't right either, whether the others could hear it or not.

 _Monster_ , he thought, _I'm a monster. But at least we got Martin_.

"It's alright, Jon. I like to help."

Helen could say what she liked. It wasn't alright.

When he hit the floor of the archives, he took off for his office, closed the door behind him, and locked it.

 

******

 

Daisy stifled a growl low in her throat as the Archivist bolted off, away from all of them. She wasn't like that anymore. She'd given up the Hunt. She'd given up the person it had made of her. She took a deep breath, and did not chase him.

Basira sighed and wrapped her arms around Martin again, and instead of flinching, the man leaned into her, his own arms still limp at his sides.

Something in his eyes wasn't right. Something in his stillness and the drooping way he held himself wasn't right. She thought about her first few days out of the coffin, just trying to stand again until standing felt right, and shuddered.

"Dammit, Jon," Melanie growled softly, still trying to catch her breath.

A few months ago, Martin would have protested at any vague disparagement of Jon.

Now, he stayed limp in Basira's arms, leaning more and more heavily into her until Basira caught her eyes over his shoulder and gestured toward the other end of the hall.

She stepped up to help and laid a hand on Martin's shoulder, trying to be gentle even though she'd never much felt like she was cut out for it. He didn't flinch, but he did make a little, soft noise in the back of his throat that she couldn't quite interpret.

"Come on," she said with as little growl to her voice as she could manage, "Let's get you back home."

It wasn't until she was walking, one hand still on Martin's shoulder as he stumbled awkwardly forward with Basira's arm around his waist to stabilize him, that she realized she wasn't totally sure what 'home' meant anymore.

They hadn't left the Archives. They never left the Archives. As far as she knew, Martin hadn't either, before he vanished, so probably that was as good a home as any, but it had been - jarring to go from the endless, crushing tunnels of the Buried to sleeping in the wider but still dark tunnels under the institute. She wasn't sure if it would be better or worse for Martin.

Melanie caught up with Helen, who was a little ways ahead, and started talking vaguely about revenge for something or other, and Jon, and tormenting him _only a little_ , and Daisy tuned it out. She and Melanie got on fine, but the faint whiffs of Slaughter that rolled off her from time to time made keeping the Hunt at bay harder, and Daisy had gotten very good at tuning Melanie out in those moments.

Instead, she focused on Martin, who still walked with his arms hanging limp and heavy, and still moved weirdly on his joints, and still looked around him with that look in his eyes that wasn't right.

If he were a little bit smaller, she might have suggested that she and Basira just carry him, but as it was, they'd just have to walk slowly down the infinite, terrible corridor Helen never _could_ quite shorten as much as she would have liked.

 

******

 

Martin wasn't sure if the world was floating around him or if he was floating through it. Either way, it was a nice change of pace, so far as he could trust it.

Basira's arm was around him, and that felt real. As real as breathing. He'd remembered her when she pulled him into her arms and he'd felt the side of her hijab against the side of his face, and he'd felt a shock run through him like electricity, hard and painful.

The second hug had been better, still humming with something, but not so much of a shock. The electricity thrummed more comfortably through him, and it didn't feel like the Flesh nightmares he'd had when he was gone.

Gone? Gone where?

The corridor was long and wrong and impossible, but his mind slid back off it, like it had slid away any time it tried to think too hard about the fog in the other place. Some places simply were, and that was that.

He moved his limbs, feeling the world press against them, and that was not so good. Not so predictable. But Basira's arm was solid, half carrying him, and then there was a hand on his shoulder that a little later he worked out was Daisy's, and if this wasn't real, at least it was different, and at least the deep, deep ache under the skin where they touched him was the good kind of ache, and not like the pain had been in the other place when it made him hurt.

Everything blurred and stretched, and then they were in something that wasn't the corridor, and that blurred and stretched too, but it kept pressing back up at him when he put his feet on it, and Daisy and Basira stayed right where they were, and the noises that hit his ears were real noises, even as they swirled together into an unknowable murmur.

Going downward was odd. It pushed differently against the ground - he pushed differently against the ground? The ground pushed differently against him as they went down, and the place that was down was darker, which was alright, in that it was different than the place before, but bad in that it was harder to _know_ that it was different than the place before, when it looked so much like the other place had looked while he had his eyes closed.

A torch clicked on in front of him. Melanie was still up there. Melanie. Where was Jon? He had gone, or maybe the thing with the eyes had gone, or maybe both had gone, and Martin wasn't sure where.

He stopped, and Basira stopped short with him, Daisy thumping into his back. The pressure of her body was there for only a moment before she pushed herself back and away, but it sent another jolt through him.

Then her hand was back on his shoulder, wrapping gently around it, and he felt his eyes well up with tears for reasons he couldn't work out, and she said, "Come on, it's just a little farther," and he didn't know what that meant, because space had stopped making sense long ago and time didn't make much sense eitheer, but he put his foot forward again, and felt the ground push back, again, and then he was walking, letting Basira's arm guide him, and he could almost, almost make it all real.

The space where they stopped was lit by a series of lanterns, all lined up. At first, he instinctively disliked them, imagining tiny, burning eyes, but then he switched his focus to the regular, square stones they illuminated, and he realized they made sense of things, and he decided that maybe they weren't so bad.

The tunnel stretched on past the little lit rectangle, but the tunnel was a place-and-not-a-place, and the set of cots around the lanterns were a Place, and Melanie was already in it and talking.

"We don't have enough cots. We'll have to get another."

"He can use mine." Martin realized a moment too late that he should have turned to look at Daisy when she'd started talking, but she seemed to be done, so there was no point to turning now.

Melanie grunted. "I ought to steal Jon's out of his office. Bastard."

Basira and Daisy guided him over to one of the cots, and he focused on his feet and on his feet and on - oh. Sitting was odd, too. He sat on the cot, and it pressed back up under his weight, and unlike the ground, it bounced a little.

He bounced up and down, feeling the cot spring up and down with him, but then Basira's arm left him and Daisy's hand followed, and he reached out by instinct more than intention, catching Basira's wrist with a little soft whine.

No. Words. It should be words. He wasn't sure he could remember how to words.

"Oh," Basira said.

Daisy put her hand back on his shoulder and he sighed, relaxing into the touch. It had only been gone for a moment, but his body had nearly screamed in its absence, all on its own and without him or his throat or any words at all.

"Yeah," Daisy said, "The adjustment from this kind of a thing is - weird. And I at least _sometimes_ had people to talk to in there."

Melanie appeared in front of him, squatting awkwardly until her face was at eye level. "Is he crying? That's it. I'm gonna barge into that office and take Jon's cot whether he likes it or not. You just sit tight, Martin. We'll get a place set up for you."

Yes. A place. He was in a place, and he thought it might probably be a real place, and that probably meant he ought to try to figure out where it was.

That sounded exhausting. _Everything_ sounded exhausting. The world sat heavy against his skin, made of air and dust and _places_ , and he ached for it and he ached from it.

Melanie left and Basira squatted down in her place, moving both her free hand and the one attached to the wrist he was holding. He loosened his grip a little as her hands drew closer to him and started wiping the tears from his face.

"Martin, are you in there? Come on. We need you back here."

His throat whined and he didn't know why. Her hands felt so good on his face that he found himself crying in earnest, making little sniffling noises.

Basira's face shifted, but it was blurred by his tears and he could only see the movement.

Daisy's voice was weirdly soft. "It's alright, Basira. I've got him."

The cot bounced again as she sat beside him, her hand sliding from one shoulder to the other. His whole body shuddered under the touch, another rush of electric _ache_ running through him.

He choked out a sob, cross with himself. That was supposed to be words. He was supposed to be working on words.

Words were exhausting, and he hadn't even made any yet. Not since he'd left the other place.

Daisy scooted closer, the outside of her thigh pressing against the outside of his until he could feel the contact radiating through his whole leg, and the side of her stomach against the side of his, and the weight of her arm across his shoulders and the press of her ribs against his, and another sob jerked out of him, and then she was pulling him closer, nearly into her lap, and he tucked himself into her and cried so hard it wracked his entire body.

Her hand ran side to side across his back and it felt _good_ and it _hurt_ and he _hurt_ and he cried with everything that was in him, until he was too exhausted to keep his eyes open.

 

******

 

Jon tried not to pry. He did. He tried not to Look and he tried not to Listen and he tried not to Know, but the Knowing just kept pouring over and through him.

He stood up off his cot and started clearing it off to be moved well before Melanie made it to his office, and he tried to convince himself that Knowing about the others at least didn't hurt Martin. He really hoped that Knowing about the others didn't hurt Martin.

Melanie yelled at him, and he tuned her out and focused on trying not to Know and folded his blankets into a neat pile to send away with her, and he suspected that she was yelling at him about that, too, but he wasn't listening enough to know.

"I'm going to read some statements tonight," he said, interrupting her, "Tell Martin it's alright."

He hadn't connected those two thoughts for her. She punched him in the sternum and told him to tell Martin himself, and he realized she hadn't put them together on her own. But she took the blankets and she took the cot, and he lost control of himself for a moment as he closed the door behind her, and he Knew Martin was crying. He squared his jaw and pulled out his tape recorder.

No.

He wasn't going to hurt Martin anymore.

He wasn't going to Look in on him.

He wasn't going to Know about him.

He opened the nearest file, one that he wasn't even completely sure _meant_ anything, and he started to read.

The pressure in his head faded a little, and the little flickers of Martin and Daisy and Basira were replaced by the full, textured details of the statement, instead.

Maybe he shouldn't sleep here, either. Nowhere else was safe, but he could hardly let Martin and Daisy and Basira and Melanie sleep with a monster upstairs, either.

Then again, Peter might still be here somewhere.

There were too many monsters.

He'd just have to do his best to keep from tipping the scales all the way over.

He focused on the statement.

Martin was crying, and he needed not to Know.

 

******

 

Daisy sighed in relief when Martin fell asleep in her arms. It was still weird, and it was still awkward, but it was slightly less of both, and she was willing to take what she could get.

She'd asked Basira to go get food more from a desire not to feel _watched_ than from any real impression that Martin was going to want to eat anything. She didn't like being too alone, but she didn't much like being watched, either.

You didn't need food in those kinds of places, and she suspected that even without having had his mouth full of dirt for months, Martin wasn't going to be thinking about food for a while. Then again, if she was any indication, when he did, he'd be ravenous. Maybe it hadn't been such a bad idea, either way.

They'd ended up in a weird tangle, both twisted sideways, but after a few mostly-gentle shoves he hadn't seemed to notice while he was sobbing, she'd managed to lean herself back against the wall and get Martin's head nestled against her stomach, away from her breasts. Not that she thought he had much interest in them, but it was the principle of the thing.

His arms were still around her waist, keeping her from lying down completely, but she'd managed to get her pillow between her head and the wall, ignoring the soft whines Martin let out even in his sleep when she removed her arms from where they draped over him.

Melanie had come down with another cot and a blanket, but then realized she didn't have a pillow and taken off again, cursing under her breath about Jon. Usually, these days, she cooled down a _little_ bit easier than that, and Daisy wondered if she was more upset than she looked about the state Martin was in. Or maybe she was just reeling from that other place more than she wanted to let on.

Daisy shivered. You couldn't pay her to go back into another place like the one inside the coffin.

She ran a hand through Martin's hair, feeling a little guilty for being grumpy about how useless he seemed, drooling against her stomach and whining when she tried to extricate herself.

When Melanie returned a second time, only to help her rearrange Martin to actually lie down on the cot, and then immediately bolted once he was settled to do who-knew-what, Daisy was sure of it.

She growled under her breath. "Everyone's upset about you, and here you are refusing to let go of me," she whispered. "Don't you know _anyone_ else would be better at - whatever this is?"

Martin sighed as she ran her fingers through his hair again, and she sighed, too. She wasn't sure she was still the worst at this. She'd been trying to be better. But surely - surely she couldn't be - she shook her head.

It actually wasn't so bad having Martin tucked into her lap. She'd never liked feeling trapped, and she liked it even less now, but at least she had a full range of motion with her limbs.

Basira had said something about the importance of touch and human contact and health and whatever else, before she left to collect dinner, but Daisy had been too embarrassed, and too focused on getting Martin off of her boobs, to pay much attention.

But maybe it went both ways. She hadn't spent a lot of time touching other people lately. And the Buried was only half of it.

Martin was dead asleep, and every time she checked his eyes, she was still sure of it, and every time he made a soft little contented noise or nestled farther into her tummy, she checked again, and the rest of it was a big, messy tangle in her chest.

That was fine.

She was good at ignoring those.

 

******

 

When Martin opened his eyes, he was still in a place, and there were still hands on him, and there was a voice rumbling through his head and another behind him, and everything was still hard to make sense of, but it was starting, maybe, a little bit, to sink in that whatever was happening around him, this was real.

Everything was dark in front of him until he picked his head up and realized he'd had his face buried in Daisy's stomach. "Oh!" He sat up, blushing.

Daisy picked her hands up off his side and stretched with a deep groan, shifting side to side a little bit until her back popped, just audible this close to her. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to-"

Daisy grunted. "'S ok. I've been in one of those places. And anyway, _apparently_ people need touching to live or something."

As she came down from the stretch, she threw one arm casually around his shoulder, and he found himself sinking into it, in spite of his best intentions. He wanted to say something to her, felt he _should_ say something to her, but now that he was sitting up, there was suddenly a lot to process.

Gravity weighed differently on him, now that he was sitting. He couldn't help feeling like he ought to be used to it, but even breathing was different than it had been in - his brain skated away from a thought of the other place. Best not to tempt fate. Either this was real, or it was a hallucination, and if it was a hallucination, it was the most detailed and least horrifying one he could remember, and he ought to stay in it as long as possible.

Basira was on the other side of the narrow room - room? tunnel? - _place_. She had several boxes of Chinese takeaway laid out on the stripped cot across from her, and it looked like she'd also raided a kebab truck, and a Nando's, _and_ brought them sandwiches.

She smiled as she turned to look at him and Daisy. "I know 'skin hunger' sounds like our kind of thing, and not like a _thing_ thing, but it is. Apparently. You'll need both food and contact for a couple of days. And you might have to do some of those exercises the doctor gave Daisy."

"Days," he repeated, struggling to catch up with all that.

"You've been gone a long time," Daisy said, her arm still slung over his shoulder, "But it's ok. I'm real. We're all real."

He felt his breathing ease a little, and realized he'd been tense without even noticing it. Maybe that was why breathing was weird here. He breathed again, deep and steady. Then he twisted around, putting his feet on the floor. Oh. That was very odd, too.

"We assumed you'd be hungry when you woke up," Basira said, "But I wasn't sure for what, and if Peter's about to be on the warpath about us getting you out of there, I thought we might be down here for a while, so I went ahead and got - everything."

"Melanie's off, too. Not sure what she's looking for. She might just be looking for trouble, honestly." Daisy said, casually.

Martin's brain caught up halfway. "Oh. Food. I'm-" He thought about his stomach for a second and realized that he was, in fact, hungry. He thought about his mouth and couldn't decide which food sounded like the right thing. "I don't-" he started again.

Basira studied him, locking eyes for a moment and then glancing around his entire face. "That's fine," she said, sighing. "I'll just make you a plate with a little bit of everything and then you can make up your mind."

Daisy stretched again, and Martin found himself squeaking in protest as she temporarily removed her arm.

He blushed, but Daisy didn't react beyond laying her arm back over his shoulders once she finished the stretch. It got weirdly quiet as Basira made plates for both of them and brought them over, his with a bit of everything and Daisy's with just a few of her favorites.

Before they started eating, Daisy looked him in the eye. "I'm still real when we're not touching, you know. And everyone else is, too."

He nodded, silently.

She shoved him gently in the shoulder. "Eat your dinner. Your skin's not the only thing that's gonna be hungry. And _you_ didn't even get dust in your mouth, in _your_ place."

He wanted to tell her he had, but then he remembered that he hadn't, really, he'd just hallucinated it, and he held his tongue.

Things got less clear once he was eating, and he didn't think it was just because Daisy had moved her arm to eat her own dinner. There were so many things, and they were all different, and tasting was weird and unfamiliar and the textures were many and confusing, and the light of the lanterns stayed as steady as the cold light of the other place, and neither Daisy nor Basira were talking as they all ate. He was only halfway through his plate when he had to stop, panting, and squeeze his eyes shut and try to breathe.

"Ok, I guess that's - Alright, I'll come take your plate." Basira's voice didn't make sense, but Daisy pressed her thigh harder into his as they sat side-by-side and that helped a little.

"He'll need lots of sleep," Daisy said, looking up at Basira, "Melanie, too, probably."

"If she ever comes back," Basira answered.

Daisy shrugged. "She will."

Basira stepped over and took the plate out of his shaking hands.

"Th-Thank you," he said, "I'm sorry."

She smiled, small but genuine. "It's alright. It's not your fault. It's just - we're going to miss you being the stable one."

"And making tea," Daisy said, "I always thought I was a bad-police-coffee kind of girl, but when you make it-"

"It's still not coffee," Basira said, but her voice was light, amused - joking, he realized after a moment.

He smiled at her, a moment too late, and was surprised how tiring even that was after everything. It was easier to lean into Daisy's side now that he wasn't also trying to eat. When she didn't seem to mind a little testing nudge, he allowed himself the comfort, tucking his head into her shoulder and closing his eyes to listen to them chatting calmly back and forth.

Just before he fell asleep on Daisy's shoulder, he felt her arm wrap around his head, patting his ear from below. "We'll still be real when you wake up." He sure hoped so.

 

******

 

Jon ground his hands into his closed eyes. Not Looking was getting harder and harder. He had begun to understand how Elias had become - Elias. The idea bothered him, but not as much as the flashes of things he wasn't looking for and didn't feel good about seeing.

He couldn't turn up in the team's dreams, but the more he used his powers, and the more he listened at the door in his head, the more leaked out in spite of himself.

Searching for Martin might have left a crack too big to close up again.

Just before he fell asleep the first night Martin was back, he Saw all of the archival assistants together, asleep in the dark in their tunnels.

Daisy and Martin were curled up together on two cots they'd tied together with a bit of rope that didn't look terribly soft. Basira's cot was on the same side of the tunnel, and she'd stretched a hand across the little space between the heads of the cots to hold hands with Daisy. Melanie was on the other side of the tunnel, separated from them but not, for once, turning her back on them. Her face was surprisingly peaceful, tilted toward Daisy and Martin's soft snoring.

He pulled himself out of the vision. He wasn't supposed to Look. Shouldn't. Couldn't. Couldn't afford the risk of hurting Martin. But at least he'd been focused on all of them, and not just Martin. And at least Martin still seemed to be asleep.

The more he'd used his abilities, the more he'd learned he couldn't afford to be preoccupied with _anything_ or he'd start to see flashes of it when he was trying to do something else.

He didn't know how to avoid preoccupation, and he _especially_ didn't know how to do it when he was just coming off of one big project and didn't have a new one yet.

The next day, he tried to throw himself into reading and recording more statements, but it wasn't an all-encompassing focus, like stopping an impending ritual or finding a missing assistant would have been.

He got flashes of Georgie and the Admiral all day, trying not to think too hard about why he was suddenly not sure that sleeping here, on the floor of his office, was the safest option. He got flashes of Martin and the others when he tried not to think too hard about moving back in with Georgie for a little while.

Martin went to the doctor. Basira asked questions and made lists and demanded tests the doctor was a little baffled by, but he was too intimidated to say no. Jon forced himself not to watch, or listen, or wait for the results.

Melanie took Martin to her therapist, and they held hands in the waiting room when he started shaking. Jon forced himself not to watch Martin melt into Melanie's side like she'd never been almost as much Slaughter as person, not to sit and watch her sigh and lean back into him like she wasn't one of the prickliest people in his life and call him a wuss with less venom than he'd ever heard in her voice.

Daisy was stuck to Basira's side like glue, and he didn't watch them and he didn't wonder if Daisy was remembering her time in the Buried, and he _did_ watch the Admiral nap in a sunbeam for half an hour when his mind went back to moving in with Georgie and the Eye led him there.

Preparing for another interview with Elias, getting ready and trying to account for all the ways the man might mess with his head, was a better distraction, and it kept the Seeing at bay for more of the day.

It was as good a project as any, and he decided to stick to it and worry about moving and Georgie and Daisy and Martin later.

He Saw again as he curled up in the corner of his office and thought about missing his cot, and it was a silly, silly slip, and the sight of Melanie blowing up an enormous air mattress and half-jokingly telling the others off for being impractical was almost punishment enough, because it hurt a little, and not just because they had enough beds and hadn't returned his cot.

He couldn't See his assistants' dreams. But he could See them in his own dreams, Daisy and Martin curled up together again like last night, but on the mattress this time, Basira's cot pulled up close to Daisy's side so that she could drape a hand down onto Daisy's shoulder, and Melanie, surprisingly, asleep on the air mattress with her back pressed up against Martin's side, separate and untangled and still closer than he would have expected.

Her cot was still set up, and it still had sheets on it, and he didn't have to Know to put together that she'd gone to bed in her cot and gotten up to drag herself and her blanket onto the air mattress halfway through the night.

He woke up and forced his mind away from them and called Georgie even though it was 3:00 in the morning. She was grumpy when she answered, but he'd Seen that she was alone, and he didn't let himself watch her reaction, but he still Knew she'd let him come over and crash on her sofa a good 45 seconds before she said it.

 

******

 

Daisy had gotten used to weird a long time ago. She still wasn't sure she had her head around this, though.

None of the archival assistants slept in pajamas. It wouldn't be safe. It would be asking for trouble, or for an attack. It would be admitting they weren't prepared. But she'd gotten used to Basira and Melanie changing into sweats to sleep in, because at least they beat jeans, and it wasn't too odd watching Martin come back to the bright part of the tunnel in his own navy sweatpants under his softest grey jumper.

It was the rest of it that was weird-and-not-weird and was feeling too normal too fast.

Melanie had already started blowing up the air mattresses, without saying anything about it. She hadn't said anything about it when she bought the second one, and the rest of them hadn't either, and they hadn't tied them together like they did with the cots, but the next day, Martin had sewed the two fitted sheets together into an ungodly behemoth of a sheet that held the mattresses together well enough.

Basira handed out blankets so they wouldn't fight over them, and Martin climbed into his usual spot in the middle.

Martin was the only soft one of the lot of them. He'd always been the only soft one.

As Daisy crawled up the mattress next to him, she reminded herself that Martin was the only soft one and this was all his fault, really.

The hardest part of sleeping in a pile like this was that Martin was the only one who really wanted to be in the middle. She hadn't actually discussed it with Basira and Melanie, but it was plenty obvious even without talking that they all recognized the danger of being asleep.

Martin snuggled happily up against her side, and Daisy focused on her breathing.

Basira would take her other side, but she'd be the _only_ thing between her and the outside world, and that would be alright. It was ok if Basira was the only thing between her and the danger. Basira could take care of herself. Basira could take care of _her_. And she trusted Basira to get out of the way and let her up to fight if she was needed. Basira knew how to stay out of her way. Basira was safe.

"Nervous?" Martin asked softly, "I can make you some tea before bed."

Daisy scowled at him. "I'm fine."

He didn't seem fully convinced. She grunted. "Come here."

It was Martin's fault that she felt comfortable with him in her arms, even though she'd never really been one for men. It was Martin's fault that his jumper was soft and his body was warm, and he smelled faintly of the same pleasant-smelling soap all of them used because it was Basira's favorite and the only kind they owned.

When Basira finished arranging things and crawled into the bed behind her, wrapping an arm all the way around her and slotting her hand in between her and Martin, Daisy couldn't stop the smile that pulled at her lips.

That, at least, she was used to being reassuring.

Adjusting the blankets was awkward, and not less so when Melanie finished turning off most of the lanterns and turning down the last one and then crawled into the other side of the bed to wrap her arms around Martin with her usual preemptive insistance on always being the big spoon and never the little one.

It was warm in the middle even before Martin did his awkward best to spread his blanket over as many of them as possible even though they each technically had their own. For a moment, Daisy felt stifled, too surrounded by things too close.

But then Basira snuggled farther into her back, and Martin asked if she was ok, and she could breathe again.

Everything that was too close was soft and warm and comforting, and none of it hurt.

If it started to feel otherwise, she'd worm her way out of the pile, and none of the rest of them could complain about it, because it wasn't like she was the only one with nightmares.

She was still half thinking about the impracticality of it all when she drifted off to sleep, faster than she used to, wrapped up in blankets and arms and warmth.

The last thing she heard was Martin whispering "Thanks," like he always did, aimed at all and none of them.

 

******

 

It was _deeply_ unfair, Martin thought, that sleeping was the one thing that was hard now that everything else was getting better.

That first day out of the other place, sleep had come easy. He'd been exhausted, aching deep and hurting and too spent (or maybe too weak, he thought in his worse moments) to stay awake.

Sleep hadn't been that easy since, and it wasn't _fair_.

He lay in the faint light from their one dimmed lantern, sandwiched between Daisy and Melanie, and tried not to feel guilty about the fact that he hadn't told them the aching in his skin was gone now.

He didn't hurt when no one was touching him. He didn't feel that electric charge when they were. He didn't feel the hunger in his skin howling for comfort either way, like he had at the start.

It was still reassuring to be wrapped up in the others' body heat, with Melanie's breath ghosting evenly over the back of his neck.

As he had last night, he thought about Melanie's arm around his side. She was muscular, more than he was, and he couldn't be sure whether the weight of her arm against him was intentional or just gravity. He wanted to believe it was on purpose, so he didn't have to feel like he was an imposition, wanting to sleep close to other people so that they'd be there when he had nightmares.

Then again, maybe the others needed it, too. Daisy - well, he'd never been completely sure what to expect of Daisy, and he'd been staying clear of the Archive before Jon brought her back, and he'd known she'd be different but -

No. It was wishful thinking to tell himself that Daisy had been surprisingly receptive to cuddling. When she came back, she'd been constantly near Basira and Melanie for safety, not for - this. Whatever this was.

In another place, alone, he would have rolled over, as if turning around would banish the thought that he was dragging everyone else along into his own fear and weakness and need, but both Melanie and Daisy woke up from nightmares often enough that it wasn't worth the risk of waking them up by turning over when he didn't actually need to.

He was certain, to his bones, that he was sleeping better in this pile of blankets and limbs than he would be on his own. He was less certain that everyone else was.

Chances were, Daisy would come to, gasping for air and clawing at the open air above them, and Basira would pull her into her arms and she would tuck her head into Basira's neck and breathe heavily until she calmed down again.

Chances were, Melanie would thrash out in her sleep, growling and keening and bruising his back and nearly clawing Daisy's eyes out before they could wake her up.

Chances were, he would wake up in the middle of the night and disturb everyone by trying to crawl out to go to the bathroom.

Well, maybe not that one tonight. He'd been more careful about not drinking tea too late before bed.

Basira sighed in her sleep, and he wondered what she dreamed about. She was sure to notice, soon, that he was doing better. She was sure to decide, soon, that having all of them squashed together in a nest of blankets was a security risk. Maybe he had better just enjoy it while it lasted. It was still better than being alone. It still soothed the parts of him that ached, even though they were deeper than his skin now.

He was better at gravity. He was better at sitting and standing and breathing and words. He wobbled less on his feet. He hurt less when he did his exercises from the doctor. He felt less like his heart was going to explode when Melanie bullied him into coming on a run with her. His nightmares were - well, they were the same, mostly, but it didn't take so long to remember they were dreams, and he'd stopped being certain, in those first moments of wakefulness, that he was in a hallucination of a meat cage and if he tried to escape, he'd be in the fog again.

Daisy and Melanie breathed out of time with each other, and he was not in a meat cage. Everyone was close and warm, and he was not in the fog. Everyone was asleep and there were no Eyes. The lantern they left on and dimmed kept it from being too dark, both for their nightmares and for their safety if something happened. Everything was alright.

He thought of Jon again, and his heart ached as hard and deep as any of the aches had been when he came out of that place. The one ache that hadn't started to heal.

Melanie's arm twitched slightly, and the angle of her head shifted a little bit, her breath hitting a different spot on his neck.

She was still grumpy with Jon. She was still saying things like 'how dare he' and 'I'll go tell him-' and none of it had brought him back here to them.

He was in the Archive sometimes. He locked himself in his office. He wouldn't let them in.

Any time Martin described the Eye from the other place, Basira said maybe it was for the best that Jon was keeping his distance. He'd mostly stopped responding on instinct, because if he looked upset by the idea, Melanie would charge off to yell at Jon again, or Basira would find a distraction for everyone, or Daisy would cite her no-pity-party policy with a glare and he would feel guilty for saying anything.

He still missed Jon.

Sometimes, his nightmares didn't end with him waking up and grabbing hold of the arms around him and letting Daisy tell him everyone was real. Sometimes, they ended with Jon in front of him, eyes closed and glowing behind his eyelids, like he'd been in the other place, but this time when Martin took his hand, Melanie wasn't there and Jon never let go, and the floating nothingness was suddenly not so bad, and his dream was just a dream.

He scrunched his face up. They were just dreams. The wish-fulfillment kind. From what Daisy had said, he would know if the _real_ Jon was in one of his dreams, and he never was.

Of course he wasn't.

He'd been able to tell himself that Jon just needed time to recover from the other place, too, but Melanie was alright now, and she'd gone in with him, and she'd recovered.

Any time he tried to take Jon some tea, he found someone in his way, dragging him off to do something else.

Any time he tried to ask about Jon or eavesdrop on the others talking about him, they caught him out.

Any time he thought he'd just sneak away from all of them, it turned out Jon was still holed up at Georgie's.

Jon was gone, or distant, or hidden, and it _hurt_ , and he was _tired_ of hurting when he felt like it ought to have stopped, outside of the Lonely.

Was the threat of Peter's retaliation really greater than the threat of being in Georgie's flat? Was Jon really that desperate to stay away from him, now that he'd seen him like that, trapped in the nothingness and doing nothing about it but writhing under its tortures and his Eye?

Daisy grunted, her head buried in his chest and her arm flung over his stomach below Melanie's. "Go to sleep, Martin."

"I am," he whispered back.

"No pity parties. You're breathing like something hurt you."

Something did, and they both knew it, and he didn't say so.

"Well, at least I'm not whispering," he answered.

"Yeah, you kind of are."

He didn't have an answer for that, but he didn't need one. Daisy nuzzled into his chest again, and he ducked his head to smell her hair. It was the same shampoo as the rest of them, the one bottle they kept in the Archive shower, but at least it was real. There hadn't been smell in the other place, not unless he was hallucinating rot or dirt or rustling insects all over his body.

He didn't fall asleep right away, but he did slow down his breathing, focusing on the gradual in and out and keeping it relaxed and easy.

Daisy fell asleep before he did, but he wasn't far behind.

 

******

 

Jon didn't regret learning to See. He'd had to, to get Martin out of that place, and it had been worth it. It _had_ to have been worth it.

He gritted his teeth as he stood outside the door to the Magnus Institute. Even from Georgie's, he'd kept Seeing here. Glimpses of his empty office, when he worried irrationally that someone was in it. Glimpses of the stacks of statements left to record, when he worried he hadn't brought enough with him when he left last. Glimpses of Martin and the others, at random, and often at the worst times.

He'd been caught up in watching the four of them out to dinner when the Admiral had bit him for not letting go when he wanted down off his lap.

He'd healed up before Georgie could get him a band-aid, but he'd taken it as a sign, anyway.

There was no use trying to deny it. There was no use trying to hide from it. He was a monster, now, and he couldn't stop Watching or Seeing or Knowing, and he was just selfish enough to go back to work, where maybe he could see the others with his human eyes instead of his other senses, and it would cut down on some of the guilt.

He kept his eyes, human and otherwise, focused on the front door, and the foyer just inside it. Then he shifted his focus to the door to the Archive. Then to the door to his office.

Good. He'd made it. He'd behaved himself. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

As he stepped through his office door, he remembered again that Melanie had stolen his cot and never returned it. She and the others had kept telling him he needed to talk to Martin, but they didn't understand. Even _Melanie_ didn't understand, which was particularly annoying, since she'd heard Martin as well as he had. "Please don't hurt me," as if he would ever want to.

But it didn't matter that he hadn't wanted to. He'd hurt Martin every time he Looked for him, and even now, after all this recovery time, he was only mostly sure that he wasn't hurting him when he Looked in on him _now_.

He tried to keep his Eye focused on the office, to keep it in service to his human eyes, as they looked for the best place to curl up on the floor with a blanket, but it was too strong here, and he had little control, regardless, and all of a sudden, he was looking down on all four of his assistants on their enormous air mattress, fast asleep.

A spike of something ran through his chest. He didn't dare call it loneliness. He was determined to keep the Lonely away from here, far away from Martin. Basira was helping him with that. Helping even as she chided him for staying away and _didn't understand_.

He pulled his Eye back, but then lost control again as soon as he'd found a spot to curl up in with his pillow. He closed his eyes to sleep and his vision returned to the spot in the tunnels too fast for the sight to be a dream.

He grunted, displeased. They looked calm. Peaceful. Comfortable. He knew none of them (save Martin) was particularly a soft or sweet or touchy-feely person, and he knew something about this was just desperation, and therefore his own fault, but he was still -

 _Don't be jealous, Jon,_ he told himself, coming back to the office. _It's your own fault you keep making choices that turn you into - this._

He got a little bit better at keeping his Eye in his head as he struggled to sleep, but the cold tile underneath him left him unable to stop thinking of the cozy little pile in the tunnels or his own missing cot even when he could pull his Sight away from the others, and he kept bouncing back and forth, back and forth.

Finally, he gave up on muscling though. He'd been trying it for days, and he was beginning to think that the amount of Beholding he'd let out was impossible to put back.

He wouldn't join them. He wouldn't torment Martin by reminding him of the way he'd Looked in while Martin was trapped in the Lonely. He'd just get in, fold his cot up as quietly as he could, and make off with it.

It would be fine.

No one on his staff was a heavy sleeper, anymore, but it would be fine.

He could be quiet.

He _could_.

At the entrance to the tunnels, he sent his Sight to check on them again, verifying that they were asleep.

All four breathed slowly and steadily, and all four had closed eyes. That was as good as he was going to get without compounding his Seeing with Knowing and opening himself up for more guilt over doing that to Martin. Knowing would have to be personal to each of them, and if he burned Martin now-

No. He squared his jaw, and lifted his head, and started down into the tunnels.

They would never know. Not until the morning when his cot was gone, anyway, and then Melanie could come yell at him for it and he'd just bite his tongue, or maybe fight back if he still felt this bad about everything and needed the release.

He kept his torch beam focused on the floor and his mind focused on the stone in front of him, and he made it to his assistants' little hiding place faster than he'd expected.

He focused equally hard on the cots against the wall, until he could pick out the one he was most sure had been his. He focused equally hard on folding it up with as little noise as possible and leaning it silently against the wall. He focused equally hard on folding up the spare blanket nearby that had also once been his.

The guilt started to creep back as he folded the blanket. He could probably leave it. The one he'd borrowed from Georgie would probably be warm enough once he was off the ground, even though it hadn't been without the cot. He was probably over-reacting to the cold.

He was still debating it with himself, keeping his focus carefully and squarely on the blanket in his hands, when a hoarse, sleep-dazed voice behind him spoke, and he flinched hard.

"Jon?"

Even fuzzy with sleep, Martin's voice sounded stronger and more sure than it had in the other place. Jon's heart warmed, even as his whole body clenched in surprise.

He turned around very, very slowly, putting his hands up and closing his eyes so that he wouldn't be looking at Martin, only to feel himself starting to Look and open them again, trying to cut off the Eye before it could get started.

Martin looked at him over Melanie's sleeping form, his hair sticking up where it had rested on the pillow. His eyes were bleary and he looked confused, and Melanie's arm slipped down his side, coming to rest against Daisy's arm as he pushed up onto his elbow. For a moment, Jon was certain that they were both about to wake up from the movement, but they didn't.

"It's alright, Martin," he whispered, "I'm not staying. I'm just here to get my cot and go. I won't hurt you anymore. I'll - I know to stay away."

"Jon?" Martin's voice was still coming out solid, and he couldn't leave it unanswered.

"It's going to be ok," he whispered again.

"Are you alright?" Martin whispered back.

Jon's heart squeezed uncomfortably, pinching in his chest. "I'm fine, Martin."

He wasn't sure if the skepticism on Martin's face was real, or just a side effect of the confusion of being woken from sleep.

"Why are you avoiding us, then? That doesn't seem fine."

"Don't worry about me," Jon whispered back, too fast, "I'm not - you -"

"I _always_ worry about you."

Daisy made a soft noise, but he didn't think she'd woken up, and then he Knew she hadn't, though she was close, and he took a step back, away from the bed.

"I _will_ keep the Eye away from you," he whispered, "The Eye and the Lonely both. I promise."

Martin sat up farther, eliciting another noise from Daisy where she was plastered to his chest. "Oh. Is that what you've been - but I thought -"

Jon turned around and grabbed for the cot, almost knocking it over in his haste.

"Don't go."

He stopped again. "What?"

"Don't go. You're not - you're not _only_ the Eye, you know. And you won't be - I got better at being a person again by being with people. Daisy did, too. And our therapist says - well, Melanie doesn't like me talking about it. Says it's too private."

Daisy sat up, groggily. "Martin?"

"It's ok," he whispered, "It's only Jon."

"I thought he couldn't get in our dreams, now that we work here."

"I can't," Jon whispered back, heart pounding as he tried to get the situation more in hand instead of less, "I'm just here for a cot. Go back to sleep."

"Tell him to stay," Martin whispered, something in him sounding almost as soft and broken as he had in the other place, and Jon's hands shook on the cot.

"No, I can't, I - I wish -"

He hadn't even realized Melanie was awake until she was letting go of Martin and whipping around to lunge toward his legs.

He tried to step away from her, but there wasn't room. Once she had a grip on his knees, she half climbed up him, wrestling him down to the ground in an awkward, sleep-fogged motion he couldn't help thinking he should have been able to stop.

He hit the ground hard, the breath coming out of him in a loud "Oof."

Basira was stirring beside Daisy as the latter sat up, muttering, "No pity parties. It's a rule."

Melanie rearranged, pinning him down to the ground and sitting on him. "Asshole," she said, "Now you woke everybody up. If Martin says he wants you to stay, you should stay. Like we've been _telling_ you."

Basira groaned, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "For God's sake, Jon, why do you always do the most inconvenient thing for everyone?"

"I'm not - none of you were supposed to wake up!"

"Well, I feel like you could have known _that_ one wasn't going to work," Melanie said grumpily from her seat on top of him. "Don't have to be subject to a creepy eye to work that out."

"I'm sorry, ok?" he answered.

Daisy grunted. "Be sorry tomorrow. It's _extra_ no pity parties in the middle of the night."

"Oh, so you're all up in the middle of the night enough for it to be a rule, but _I'm_ the problem?" he said waspishly.

Melanie thumped him on the top of the head. "Don't be an ass, Jon. It's not like you sleep, either. Apparently."

"I was _trying_ to-" he took a deep breath. This wasn't what he'd wanted. This was the _opposite_ of what he'd wanted. "Look, just let me up and I'll leave all of you alone again, and you won't have to deal with me and I'll keep the Eye off you as long as I can and we'll just-"

"No," Martin said, sounding more confident than Jon was strictly used to, "I'm tired of worrying about you. The therapist says I've got to start paying attention to what _I'm_ feeling, and what I'm feeling is I'm worried about you. And I miss you. And I don't like either of those, much."

Jon opened his mouth and then shut it again.

Martin was blushing, but hadn't looked away.

Why. _Why_? Martin was in _therapy_ apparently learning about listening to his own feelings, and he was _still_ worrying about him instead of worrying about what he might do to him by accident if he kept Looking, and it was too late at night to make any sense of it without Knowing, and he couldn't let himself - couldn't let himself-

Melanie growled on top of him. "Martin needs you. He's only just getting better, and he won't keep getting better if he keeps fretting over you. So you're coming to bed and you can spout more of your bullshit in the morning."

She got up, but he didn't get any less trapped as she started hauling him up to his feet and shoving him over toward the mattress.

He knew a lost cause when he felt one. He let Melanie manhandle him into the bed and shove him up against Martin, blushing as he found himself chest-to-chest with the man.

Martin's blush darkened.

"I didn't mean, um-" he started.

Jon cut him off. "It's alright. It's not your fault."

None of it was Martin's fault. All of it was his. He should have known better than - than any of it. Than all of it.

"It's not really yours either, though," Martin said.

Before he could answer, Melanie shoved him, hard, in the back and he banged his forehead against Martin's.

"What part of 'spout bullshit in the morning' was hard?"

Basira groaned. "Leave him alone, Melanie, you're just gonna keep us up longer."

The other side of the pile wiggled and wobbled as Daisy rolled over and rearranged herself, holding Basira instead of Martin, who was far, _far_ too close to Jon all of a sudden, and still blushing.

Jon realized he was staring into Martin's eyes and looked away instead, glancing up toward the top of the air mattress to see how much room he had to scoot up into.

He only realized when he started trying to move that Martin's eyes were still locked on his own.

"I-" he whispered. "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

Martin's eyebrows contracted, a little worried line forming between them. "Did you think you'd be?"

"I don't - yes?"

Jon Knew Martin was feeling relieved, even though he couldn't see it. It washed over him just as hard, and all of a sudden both of them were laughing, breathy and soft, and Melanie was grumbling again as she rolled over with her back to Jon's and then shoved backward again.

He still didn't want to be tucked into Martin's chest, the lingering worry of burning him still too strong, but Martin wasn't hurting at all - was feeling better than he'd felt before - and the relief rippled through Jon just as strongly as the Beholding ever had.

He wasn't hurting Martin! He really, genuinely wasn't!

The relief was joined by another feeling he couldn't quite put a name to as Martin tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. It had been a long time, and he'd been jealous, and he'd never wanted everything other people wanted from touching, but Martin was _alive_ and _not burning_ , and he wanted nothing in the world as much as he wanted confirmation of it.

He elbowed Martin twice as they rearranged awkwardly, Melanie protesting, somewhat hypocritically, as he bumped into her as well, and Daisy making a little quiet grumpy noise as Martin jostled her half of the bed.

But then they were pressed together, leaving more room for Melanie so that she would stop shoving him. Martin's head was tucked under his chin, and both of them had their arms around each other, and as Jon closed his eyes, there was no flash of anything, Seeing or Knowing or otherwise.

"You'll tell me if I burn you?" he whispered.

"You're such an idiot." Martin said it like it was a compliment. Like he meant only the best by it.

"You'd have worried, too," he answered grumpily.

He felt Melanie twisting well before her pillow came toward his head and stopped it with a hand.

"If you don't all go to sleep _right now_ , I'm popping the air mattresses and everybody has to sleep alone," Basira said snippily.

Martin tucked his head further into Jon's chest, like he was embarrassed, and Jon found himself instinctively pulling the other man in tighter.

If the Eye was up to anything while he slept, holding Martin and penned in by Melanie's back, Jon didn't know about it. He swirled through one of his usual statement dreams, but even in his dream state, he felt the ghost of arms around his middle and pulled away, keeping out of it as much as he could.

He fell back into the darkness, away from the old memory of the sailor's statement, and found himself warm and half-aware and at peace.

Martin nuzzled into Jon's chest in his sleep, dreaming of nothing, not even the fog.

Neither woke again until morning.

Neither could remember the last time they'd slept so many hours in a row.

Martin's skin didn't cry for anyone, and neither did Jon's, and they sat close together at breakfast anyway, holding on to the edges of peace before it could get away from them.


End file.
